----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Pollak" <mpollak at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 7:34 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Would Gore have invaded Iraq?
On Sun, 11 Apr 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
> What's it mean that the war was "about" oil?
It means that oil has strategic value. That means *by definition* it's something that gives you leverage if you control it. That's what strategic means.
It isn't true. But everyone in the security establishment believes it -- that oil and the middle east are strategic. And so therefore does everyone in the world who looks to them to define such matters. And critics, seeking to use their own words against them, have absorbed their wrong premises. The whole world is in the grip of zombie categories from the cold war that are dead but still walking.
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Keynes beauty contest model applies to some significant aspects of geopolitics too, so the issue of truth on that score is moot.
Ian